A history of IP violence: how SOPA’s and PIPA’s sponsors have waged war on the Internet

Representatives Lamar Smith and John Conyers and Senator Patrick Leahy are …

Three members of Congress have played an outsized role in the advancement of copyright protection legislation over the past few years: Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), and Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-MI). And while the tech industry has certainly attempted to sway them with campaign support, the media industry has been even more generous in response to their efforts on behalf of big content.

The two chief sponsors of the Stop Online Piracy Act, Smith and John Conyers Jr., are long-time fixtures on the House Judiciary Committee. Smith is chairman of that committee, and Conyers (the committee's ranking Democrat) held the chairmanship from 2006 until Smith assumed it in 2011. Leahy, the author of the "Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011" (PROTECT IP Act, or PIPA) serves as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and is the second-most senior member of the Senate. Among them, the three have played a role in every piece of major intellectual property legislation for the past decade. While they've hardly been alone in their efforts on behalf of content creators, they've certainly been on point for them.

Conyers has the longest track record, and was one of the 9 cosponsors of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1997. In 2008, then-chairman Conyers was the House sponsor behind the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act of 2008, a bill that raised the penalties for sharing files of copyrighted materials—and was cosponsored by Smith. That bill was passed during the RIAA's civil suit campaign against file-sharers, and was introduced just after the trial of Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a Minnesota mother who was fined $220,000—and in a later trial, that fine was raised to $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song. PRO-IP created the Intellectual Property Enforcement Division at the Department of Justice, and established coordination between agencies, including Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on crackdown efforts.

Smith was a cosponsor of the failed 2010 Internet Investment, Innovation, and Competition Preservation Act, an effort to block the FCC from enacting any "net neutrality" regulations.

Leahy has sponsored or cosponsored a number of efforts over the past five years to create greater intellectual property enforcement. The Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Act of 2007, introduced in the House by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) and by Leahy in the Senate, would have created an Intellectual Property Enforcement Network to coordinate US and overseas intellectual property enforcement task forces. And Leahy also sponsored SOPA's predecessor, the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), in 2010—which was shot down before a vote by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon.

There's good reason for their interest in protecting the interests of big content companies—big campaign donations. Leahy has received $371,806 in individual and political action committee contributions from the television, motion picture, and recording industries since 2007—Time Warner has written him $62,150 in checks alone, according to Open Secrets. Smith is a favorite contribution target of the television and cable industry, his top source of campaign contributions over the last two years, accounting for nearly 10 percent of his campaign warchest donations—$133,050 from 2009 to 2011. That's two times what computer and Internet companies contributed over that term. In the run-up to his reelection campaign this year, TV, music, and film companies have contributed another $88,800 to Smith through individual and political action committee contributions, with Clear Channel (Smith's biggest benefactor) leading the way at $23,000 total so far this election cycle.

Conyers is also a darling of the media industry, with $84,000 in contributions from 2009 to 2010, and $21,000 so far toward his pending re-election campaign. The recording industry especially likes Conyers, having given him $135,000 over the course of his career in direct campaign contributions through individual and PAC donations. Right after the PRO-IP Act of 2008 passed, Disney, Time Warner, Sony, and Viacom wrote him checks (as did Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, and Google), according to MapLight.

Yes please Ars continue and air any dirty laundry you can find.I have been directed anyone on my Facebook page to your site and Techdirt for the SOPA/PIPA Material.You are doing a great job in your high standards of reporting.We all must join together for this One Issue.All people want to live freely and not be controlled no matter if you are a conservative or liberal.I am usually pretty radical and my brother is a far right conservative exec.I asked him what the Conservatives like him would think and his answer was:The more Government Regulations the harder it is to work.He likes less regulations not more.So I feel in the end even Mr. Normal Exec will not be happy.Only the Execs of Big Content and their stooges along with their paid off Politicians will enjoy this but Mr. Normal will not.

The worst thing is just how cheaply they can be bought. We're talking about legislation that will have billions of dollars of impact and cost tens of millions to litigate no matter what the outcome. And these guys sell out for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Would be interesting to see a follow-up of the PRO IP act, and see if the "hundreds of thousands" of jobs have been saved over the past 3 years. Doubtful. Hundreds of thousands into executive bonuses more like.

Would be interesting to see a follow-up of the PRO IP act, and see if the "hundreds of thousands" of jobs have been saved over the past 3 years. Doubtful. Hundreds of thousands into executive bonuses more like.

That's not how the American legislative progress works. Forward movement only - don't look back.

The worst thing is just how cheaply they can be bought. We're talking about legislation that will have billions of dollars of impact and cost tens of millions to litigate no matter what the outcome. And these guys sell out for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Don't forget that the upfront "donations" are peanuts compared to the insider trading they do with the fruits of their knowledge about legislative moves.

The worst thing is just how cheaply they can be bought. We're talking about legislation that will have billions of dollars of impact and cost tens of millions to litigate no matter what the outcome. And these guys sell out for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Don't forget that the upfront "donations" are peanuts compared to the insider trading they do with the fruits of their knowledge about legislative moves.

Sure, but they get that benefit regardless of which way they vote. It just makes it worse that these millionaires will sell out their country to grab that extra $100k.

I am not an American and so I am curious, is it routine for Congress-people to be bribed in the US?

Yes.

One example, at the state level. My friend's dad works as a lobbist for a religious organization in my state. That is a fancy title meaning he wines and dines politicians. Many state politicians will not even return his calls unless they come with an offer to a fancy dinner or sports game tickets.

He says other organizations will basically clean up prostitutes and send them in to "talk" with the politicians privately.

This is all just the state level. I can only imagine what Congress is actually like.

The worst thing is just how cheaply they can be bought. We're talking about legislation that will have billions of dollars of impact and cost tens of millions to litigate no matter what the outcome. And these guys sell out for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Don't forget that the upfront "donations" are peanuts compared to the insider trading they do with the fruits of their knowledge about legislative moves.

Sure, but they get that benefit regardless of which way they vote. It just makes it worse that these millionaires will sell out their country to grab that extra $100k.

This is false. No member of our Congress has never been bought or bribed; just the proud and jovial recipients of Corporate Personhood's free speech rights.

I am not an American and so I am curious, is it routine for Congress-people to be bribed in the US?

The answer is yes and no. We don't call it bribery. We call it a campaign contribution, so you are not directly paying for a politician to do something for you which is bribery, but you can help ensure an incumbent's success by enlarging the campaign funds. Now what bugs me about this article, which others have cited, is the paltry amounts attributed in relation to the outcome. Of course the money may be small now, but have some sort of attachment later on should the people's representatives ever lose their jobs, and the deal would have no record but would show up once out of office.

With fodder like this we should have at least ten not two popular political satirists. Colbert and Daly do a great job, but there is so much material out there! Perhaps someday students will study their work the same way I've read the work of Swift and Pope.

I am not an American and so I am curious, is it routine for Congress-people to be bribed in the US?

Routine? Yes. Pretty much. The system is set up for the highest bidder to basically have laws written to favor their agenda, and then have the ability to basically buy the votes to get the laws passed.

Google, it's time to wake up. You have more money than many of these media companies combined. There should be no reason ON EARTH that they are contributing more than you. If politicians need to be bought to protect the internet, then freaking pony up and buy them.

Or would you rather spend time blacklisting links and losing ad revenue?

I am not an American and so I am curious, is it routine for Congress-people to be bribed in the US?

Yes.

One example, at the state level. My friend's dad works as a lobbist for a religious organization in my state. That is a fancy title meaning he wines and dines politicians. Many state politicians will not even return his calls unless they come with an offer to a fancy dinner or sports game tickets.

He says other organizations will basically clean up prostitutes and send them in to "talk" with the politicians privately.

This is all just the state level. I can only imagine what Congress is actually like.

Actually, state lobbying and federal lobbying are worlds apart, particularly in the post Abramoff-era. Federal lobbyists are heavily regulated and have extremely prescriptive requirements in terms of PAC growth and contributions, fundraiser activities and events, etc. Many FEC-registered lobbyists like myself focus exclusively on research and regulatory affairs and thus never work with Congress or the PAC at all (if you meet with political appointees for a certain percentage of time, FEC requires you to register -- most folks register just to be safe about compliance with FEC regulations even if they don't meet the thresholds or do anything resembling what the public thinks of as "lobbying"). State lobbying, on the other hand, is still very old school and relatively loosely governed.

The roles are also vastly different. Although demonized by those who don't know any better because of a few bad apples out of thousands, federal lobbyists are key liaisons and issue experts for their respective constituencies, who are often not corporations and trade groups but are usually organized groups of normal citizens (professional associates, issue advocacy groups, unions, etc). Without lobbyists, the 20-something-year-old Congressional staff who truly run day-to-day business on the Hill (yes, it is scary how uninformed they are sometimes) would have nowhere to turn for learning how different stakeholder groups feel about a given issue (like opposition to SOPA, for example). Also, citizens would have no way to learn about emerging legislation and regulation that impact their interests and how to respond appropriately to potential concerns.

At the State level, however, most state legislative bodies are in session for only a matter of months (sometimes once every couple of years). The number of issues and bills introduced is much smaller (and the timeline to focus on a given issue is much briefer), votes are heavily dictated by party and committee views rather than staff outreach (state legislators typically share staff and don't have LAs for each topic area), and lobbying is all about old-timey insider relationships rather than strategic approach, information, and knowledge of government processes.

Wouldn't it be interesting if pushing SOPA and PIPA exposed how deep curruption runs in our current system to joe public and there was a major backlash against all big business/financial/govenment. I am not that optimistic this will get traction but it at some point in our near future people are going to start waking up and realise current structures are no longer relavant and who do we have to thank for bringing this to our attention? Thank you the internets. There will come a tipping point where the public realise that they get it more than the people they trust to shape our future.

I am not an American and so I am curious, is it routine for Congress-people to be bribed in the US?

Before you point at America and laugh (also my first instinct), if you live in a democracy anywhere in the world, ask yourself how your politicians fund their election campaigns.

Granted, the US seems to have it down to a fine art.

Oh, I know British politicians are bribed regularly. It's so common as to be the norm. They dress it up well though. Just thought the US version seemed to not even try to cover it up.

The other thing that's common though is the way people look for the moral high ground when they're trying to defend their point of view with regard to this proposal but are not so high-minded when other matters are covered. But then hypocrisy and self delusion are part of what makes us human.

I am not an American and so I am curious, is it routine for Congress-people to be bribed in the US?

Before you point at America and laugh (also my first instinct), if you live in a democracy anywhere in the world, ask yourself how your politicians fund their election campaigns.

Granted, the US seems to have it down to a fine art.

Oh, I know British politicians are bribed regularly. It's so common as to be the norm. They dress it up well though. Just thought the US version seemed to not even try to cover it up.

The other thing that's common though is the way people look for the moral high ground when they're trying to defend their point of view with regard to this proposal but are not so high-minded when other matters are covered. But then hypocrisy and self delusion are part of what makes us human.

We don't cover it up because that is illegal in the U.S. The U.S. version of supporting candidates' campaigns is extremely regulated and transparent. The FEC collects regular disclosures from FEC-registered lobbyists and certain PAC contributors and openly publishes all data. There is nothing illegal or unethical about lobbying correctly and appropriately.

There has been talk about campaign reform in the U.S. but the only true alternative to PACs is taxpayer-funded campaigns, which is unsavory to many Americans for a variety of reasons.

Either way, lobbyists would still exist they are experts in government processes and in appropriately connecting the organized public with the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.

Sean Gallagher / Sean is Ars Technica's IT Editor. A former Navy officer, systems administrator, and network systems integrator with 20 years of IT journalism experience, he lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.